Dreams are also part of the Sai
strategy. He has appeared in the dreams of many who were unaware of Him
and has drawn them to Himself. Karen Fromer Blanc dreamt that a person
with a huge crown of hair came to her and said, "Stay with your Hilda."
"Hilda who?" she wondered. Five years later she discovered Hilda Charlton,
Baba's devotee. The discovery transformed her life. Now she has written a
book entitled 'Dear Hilda'!

John Prendergast of the California Institute of Asian Studies has
written an article 'Swami Dreams', focussing more on their instructional
value and less on the paranormal processes. He says, "The overall aspect
of these dream-experiences with Sai Baba is difficult to gauge, but my own
relationship with Baba has deepened immeasurably. I would characterise the
primary influence as being the opening of my spiritual heart, of beginning
to balance the intellect with the values of love and compassion. Between
the spring of 1977 and 1979, Sai Baba has appeared to me during the
dream-state nearly forty times. These have profoundly affected my
spiritual awakening and the quality of my relationship with Him. Sai Baba
has said that it is impossible to see Him in dreams without His willing
it. My own experience of active guidance, chastisement, healing and
ecstatic states conferred by Him during the dream-state tends to confirm
this. My relationship with Sai Baba is, in fact, more intimate in the
dream than in the waking state... As the dream-state relationship grows
and deepens, my own inner strength and confidence grows and manifests
itself in the waking state. In addition to this effect of the
dream-reality nurturing and supporting the waking reality, the distinction
between the two realities has softened. Increasingly the two blend, so
that dream-images rise in the waking mind like distant clouds."

Willie Kweku Ansah of Accra (Ghana), writes, "Soon after this (the
Sathya Sai Centre's invitation to devotees to enrol for a trip to
Puttaparthi) I started seeing Swami in my dreams. The first night I woke
up with a rather vague feeling that I should think of going to
Puttaparthi. I discarded the thought immediately. The next dream was more
detailed and lengthy. I saw myself in front of a tall building which had
protruding platforms on the first floor. Bhagavan was on the ground floor
and I was doing Namaskara At this time I did not know that to dream of
Bhagavan was a privilege and not an ordinary occurrence. I dismissed the
dream as my silly imagination. In my third dream I saw only the face of
Bhagavan for an instant or two. I was forced to wake up in a sweat and
with a clear command to go to Puttaparthi.

"I gave my name to the Planning Committee without an inkling of where
the money for the trip would come from. I need not have worried. Within
the next few days I made, through a friend, three times my normal annual
income for no compelling reason. So the matter was settled. All other
arrangements went through without a hitch. Need I also mention that some
of the persons I travelled with I had already seen in my dreams. We
arrived at Puttaparthi on 21st November. The last thing on my mind were my
dreams. A friend decided to take a round of the prayer hall, and as we
made the turn, I stopped dead in my tracks. My friend asked what the
matter was and I uttered something incomprehensible to him. But what had
stopped me was the fact that my dream was staring me right in the face
with all its details - the protruding platform, the architecture and the
colours.

"One surprise followed another when private interviews were granted in
a room on the ground floor, and I did my Namaskara exactly where I had
dreamt it. However, all these surprises were nothing compared to what I
experienced when I went to bid farewell to Bhagavan. 'When are you coming
again?' He asked. I was not expecting the question, as the very thought of
being so lucky as to come again was far from my mind. I was, therefore,
flushed, and in delighted confusion blurted out that I did not know and
that this time I came because I had had a dream... Bhagavan interrupted in
a tone which seemed as if He was irritated; I was accounting something He
already knew. 'I know I know,' He said, and patted my back. Patanjali in
the Yoga Sutras (1,38) says that the aspirant gets guidance through
dreams, but even he does not mention that the guru, if he is an avatar,
can frame dreams for us and figure in them himself, furnishing timely
guidance."

A Book and a Journey

Baba says, "No one can come to Prasanthi Nilayam unless I call him."
The dream is one of the means He uses to draw people towards Himself.
Lawrence Galante from New York writes, "I enrolled at Hoftra University to
study more of my profession, Tai Chi, and the related philosophy. Then I
awoke one morning from a vivid dream. In this dream the title of a book
was clearly visible to me with the cover layout. It was entitled, 'Sai
Baba: Contemporary Mystic, Master and God'. Then it dawned upon me, 'Why
not? Why not write my thesis on contemporary mysticism and use Sai Baba as
my subject?' I cleared it with the university... I decided that I could
not write about Him unless I first saw Him and confirmed these miracles
for myself. I also realised that I might just go to Him and find out that
He was a fake. If so, I had reasoned, I could still write a thesis to
expose a colossal fraud. That would also do. (Baba says, 'Come, see,
experience, examine and then believe'). But how do I get to India? My bank
account was nil. I turned to Sai Baba and addressed Him saying, 'If you
want me to write this, then you must provide the money for me to get to
India, because I am broke. ' Within 48 hours, I received a cheque in the
mail for a thousand dollars from the city of New York, a sum that was owed
me for several years and which I had been trying in vain for some time to
collect... I remained with Sai Baba for two months. Daily I observed him
attending to the multitudes that came to Him - healing the sick and
materialising objects and giving them away as gifts to devotees.
Everything that Baba taught me was good and all of His endeavours were
beneficial. He also gave me permission to write about Him which is what I
am doing now. Sai Baba does not work in secrecy. His activities are an
open book for all to witness and draw their own conclusions from. Baba
often says 'My Life is My Message.' I pray, that I may receive more and
more His message."

Baba has declared very often that He wills the dream as a means of
communication with the dreamer, in order to grant him courage, confidence
and clarity of thought.

Miss Occah Seapaul of Trinidad has also been directed by Baba to
publish in a book, her talks on His message to several groups of devotees
on that West Indian island. Receiving His counsel in a dream is as
mandatory as a personal command. According to Aurobindo, "The avatar, or
divinity, acts according to another consciousness - the consciousness of
the truth above and the Leela below." Baba told Dr. M.S. Ramakrishna Rao
of Vishakhapatnam, when he enquired about the authenticity of a dream in
which Baba had rendered him the clarification of a spiritual problem,
"When I appear in a dream, it is to communicate something to the
individual. It is not a mere dream as is generally known. Do not think
that these incidents you experienced in your dream are stretches of your
imagination. I was giving answers thereby to all your doubts."

H. Narayana Rao, while in bed in the intensive care cardiac unit at the
K.E.M. Hospital in Bombay, awaiting implantation of an artificial
pace-maker, dreamt that visitors were streaming into the ward. Among them
was Baba, who stopped near his bed and spoke in His soft, reassuring
voice, "My son! I know how much you are worried about the artificial
pace-maker and the operation. Do not worry in the least. From now on your
pulse will gradually improve. Count the days from today, and on the
eleventh day, which will be Saturday the 17th, you can go home." And in
spite of the doctors putting forward various other proposals, he was
discharged exactly on the 17th, with his heart quite normal.

Proper-ties

When I read a letter from Professor Kausal of Kurukshetra in which he
had mentioned that he had resigned his job after being advised by Baba in
a dream to do so, I was reminded of another devotee who withdrew a
petition he had filed in a civil court. His claim to some property was so
strong that he fought his rival through all the labyrinths of law, in
spite of all the tension involved and the massive sums of money he had to
spend. The suit had possessed him and he was refusing to reconsider. But
Baba appeared in his dream and ordered him to give up his mislaid
attachment. "Properties are not proper-ties," said Baba with a strange
emphasis. Kausal writes, "The dreams are effective, vivid, personal and
peace-giving. I cannot brush them aside, especially since Baba later
confirms them and continues the advice He vouchsafes during the
dream-session."

Baba urges people by means of dream-appearances to come to His
presence. He smoothens the difficulties that deter them from undertaking
the journey and encourages them to enter the spiritual path towards
self-realisation We have already seen this stratagem of His love in the
accounts given by Willie Ansah of Accra and Lawrence Galante of New York.

Dr. Sandweiss writes of another interesting instance of Baba's
compassion: "Lila and I were discussing Sai Baba, and she became
intrigued. She read a book about Him and began to consider the possibility
of meeting Him herself. She was then deeply in debt and there seemed to be
no feasible way for her to get the money to go to India. Her husband,
Homer, an inventor, had no steady income at that time and had not been
able to sell an invention in over five years. Yet, as highly unrealistic
as the trip did seem, she made plans to go and obtained her vaccination
certificate and passport. Then some strange things began to happen. One
day, feeling particularly depressed, she had an unusual dream in which
Baba appeared, His eyes twinkling with fun. Soon afterwards, Homer hit
upon an invention. After a swift and improbable chain of events, some
people became interested in it and his financial position suddenly and
quite unexpectedly improved - the first time in years that this had
happened. Lila now had enough money for the trip just a week before
takeoff, and being completely prepared, she found herself jubilantly
boarding the plane with us."

It is beyond doubt that Baba plans, designs and structures the dreams
through which He initiates or deepens His impact on people. Ponder over
another incident related by Dr. Sandweiss, involving Jeff from California.

Dr. Sandweiss writes, "In the interview room where we all sat, Baba was
smiling and rocking back and forth blissfully. He turned to Jeff, the
fellow next to me, and said casually, 'I've come to you twice in dreams.'
Now, as a psychiatrist, I have certainly never heard of a colleague
talking this way to a patient. Psychiatrists deal with dreams all the
time; but to say, 'I've come to you twice in dream' would be somewhat
disconcerting for the average patient... Baba began to describe and
interpret one of Jeff's dreams and it became quite evident to me that He
had in some way fashioned the psychic experience of this man, had actually
created dreams for him and visited him in another dimension of reality.
Everything that Baba said was confirmed by Jeff. Here was the greatest
psychiatrist I had ever seen!"

Sri Jagathesan once asked Baba towards the end of an interview with
Him, "Bhagavan! Why don't you ever come in my dreams?" "Baba", he writes,
"bent down lovingly and replied, 'Okay from now on I will come in your
dreams on Wednesdays.' I regard Tuesday as a holy day because a
Vibhuti-materialisation from His picture in my house first occurred on
Tuesday, 8th June 1976. Recognising this, Baba laughed, and without my
asking amended His statement the next moment. 'No, No! Tuesdays, eh?'" And
on Tuesdays the dream brings Baba into his view as an unfailing gift of
grace.

Once, during a visit to Brindavan (Whitefield) along with Dr.
Sandweiss, Elsie Cowan excitedly knocked at his room very early one
morning saying, "I am feeling very close to Walter this morning." When
Walter had cast off his mortal coil at Tustin, California, Baba had
telegraphed to Elsie, "Walter arrived here in good shape." Elsie told
Sandweiss, "I feel that Baba and Walter have paid me a special visit. I
have been wide awake since six o'clock and full of energy." When both of
them reached Prasanthi Nilayam that evening, Baba called them in along
with a few others and, in the midst of the conversation, He suddenly said
to Elsie, "Walter and I paid you a visit this morning." "Yes, Yes!" said
Elsie, "At six o'clock I felt so filled." "No, five minutes to six!" He
corrected her. And Sandweiss adds, "I began to see Baba less as an
omnipresent controller of great forces than as a manifestation of pure
love. Clearly, His love for His devotees motivates His actions."

Baba has often said that being in this body, as distinct from the
'Shirdi' body, He feels it is not enough if a few needy humans get
spiritual guidance from Him: "It is necessary to draw all and sundry and
provide them with succour and sustenance. I must give them what they want
until they begin to want what the Avatar has come to give." Shirdi Baba
appeared in dreams to give warnings and counsel; He spoke in symbols and
veiled phrases; He helped solve mundane problems and personal tangles; He
invited to Dwarakamai, through mysterious intimations, Sadhakas and
service-oriented souls, suffering and suspicion-afflicted persons, and
awakened their latent, inner urge towards self-realisation by a mere look,
a touch, a smile or a pinch of sacred ash. This same strategy is unfolding
on an even grander scale in the Sathya Sai era. Now the world has to be
awakened and shaken out of its arrogance and schizophrenia by revelations
of truth and declarations of love. While in 'Shirdi' form, the declaration
of being an avatar was made in the comparative privacy of conversation. In
the Sathya Sai manifestation, the declaration that He is all the names and
forms through which mankind has adored God down the centuries, was made at
a World Conference in Bombay before twenty-five thousand listeners, and
many times subsequently, when hundreds of thousands were present. Through
films, tapes, books and oral testimony, the uniqueness of this Divine
Phenomenon and His wisdom, power, love and compassion are drawing
increasing love and adoration, which has united millions into one
ever-growing family of mankind.

Acknowledgement: Sourced from Book Published by Sri
Sathya Sai Books and Publications Trust Sathyam Sivam Sundaram (N.
Kasturi)
-The Life Story of Sathya Sai Baba-